Shifting
by Brooke1
Summary: Spike's POV on his and Buffy's realtionship and its end, but beware, I'm a B/Xer. (B/S, B/X)


Title: Shifting 

Author: Brooke 

Email: yabbadabbadome13@yahoo.com 

Rating: PG (sexual insinuations) 

Disclaimer: I don't own anything. I wished I owned the two Xanders' from "The Replacement" though. Buffy and friends are owned by Joss, Mutant Enemy, 20th Century Fox, The UPN and whoever else has rights to the show. 

Summary: Spike's POV is completely fragmented. It's B/S dwelling and B/X in reality.

Distribution: I don't know why anybody would want this, but if somebody does…sure. 

Feedback: Definitely!! Tell me if it sucked or if you liked it. Whatever. Just write back!

Authors Note #1: This is a narrative and I wrote it very quickly, which is why there is a lack of complete sentences. Just telling you in case it got confusing.

Authors Note #2: Assume that everything, season 1 through 7, is fair game.

Authors Note #3: Still having writers block with "Before the Fall of Rome" and I wrote this to keep me awake in psych today. 

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I can count the seconds. Tick them off as the world changes around me for the past hundred plus years. The world shifts, breaks, reforms and refuses. And I can feel it all. 

I used to feel it all.

"You make me feel like a man." I remember saying that to 'er. The look on 'er face. Recognition. Acceptance. She was flattered and disgusted by that fact. Confused as to why 'er disgust didn't chase away the flattery. I could read it all in 'er eyes. Clear grey, set wide and open. She had nodded and simply, or not so much, returned to 'er task. She had to save the world – again.

God, I love 'er. She knows it. I've shown it to 'er. Shown 'er an undying love so wrong that it was right. So right that it couldn't be denied – it wouldn't. Reveled in the unyielding rapture of 'er pulsing, heated, screaming acknowledgment of the fact.

But that's not the case anymore, is it?

She's not taking comfort in me. Hell, she told me that she was using me and couldn't stand for it any longer.

Bitch.

Saint.

Whatever.

If she cares enough about me to not want to hurt me, why take away my everything?

Now, I'm not just talking about 'er letting me lay the pipe to 'er. I'm talking about my heart. She was more than the Slayer, ya know? More than a warm body, so tainted in its perfection. She was…she was Buffy. An adjective in and of 'erself.  

Maybe, and I have to keep telling myself this, she got to the point where she cared about 'erself more. Learned to love 'erself again. I've got to be happy for 'er cuz I love 'er. I hate 'er so much for leaving me that I love 'er for finding 'erself without me. Love 'er for letting me find 'er, too.

And the odd thing – she's still 'ere. Still caring. Makes a fellow wonder sometimes if she's denying 'erself the same way she's doing to me. If she's not with me cuz I'm a vampire and she's the bloody Slayer, or if she's not with me cuz she doesn't want to be.

Every time she seeks me out, talks to me privately and in complete confidence, I wonder that. Sometimes I flashback when she's sitting on my bed…my cot in her basement. I remember when our conversations – yes, we did have conversations – led to her beneath me, moaning into my…ahem…yeah. I wonder if she knew that I was making love to 'er.

But she always gets up now. Never sleeps next to me anymore. She gets up and goes to 'im. Sodding wank…who makes 'er happier than I've ever seen 'er. So happy that I'd die to keep 'im alive just to know he'd keep making 'er smile…laugh… 'er eyes light up in a way that they never did for me.

They're in the living room now. He got 'ere half an hour ago and Giles slipped out with all the Potentials for a quick patrol. And they're just sitting there…talking. Buffy 'n I always talked after…too busy fighting before…during, even, sometimes, which was always more than a little fun.

But they're talking – they're dating, but they're still friends.

"Xander!!!" I hear Buffy's distinct giggle.

"What?!?!?!" The boy defends light heartedly, "You are!!!"

She is what? I didn't 'ear that part. He must have whispered it. It must have been a private detail – one that I probably knew front back and around anyway, but I couldn't be sure. I hadn't 'eard the secret – between friends…between lovers. She is what?

I walked out on them. Got sick of the little touches and laughs…them sitting so Goddamned close to each other. The rough scratch of 'er hand on his thigh rubbing back and forth over his jeans. She takes comfort in 'im now. Yeah, she still needs me…but the LOVE. The love is his.

They sleep together now, started just over a week ago – last Tuesday. I should've been expecting it what with it having been two and a half months. Two months one week and three days.

It was funny, really. Funny in a kick me in the sack and rip out my 'eart kind of way. I thought I 'eard something that night. Thought I 'eard sounds up stairs – breathing, whispers. I have vampiric 'earing…the sounds drifted down and I 'eard 'im. The noises. Them: Buffy and Xander. I 'eard her whisper his name, a breathy gasp that used to be mine. 'eard it through the vent that went form 'er room to the basement.

But I thought he had gone home. Thought…hoped that maybe she was dreaming…Loudly. Hell, I had dreams now – nightmares from the soul I got for her that woke me up screaming. 

But 'er voice…the sound…I couldn't sleep after 'earing it. I started remembering too much and I needed some air, a walk, a cold shower – everything that wasn't in the basement. Everything.

So I got up. Got a cup of blood from the fridge in the kitchen and hit the stairs, quietly padding towards 'er room. She could turn me away, didn't matter really. But maybe we could talk.

I didn't 'ear any more of the noises that I 'eard before. The dream must've passed, obviously. She had fallen asleep…what better time to wake 'er up, right? Maybe she had been…that would make for a delicious embarrassment. She'd be all flushed and…

And then I ran into 'im.

The last thing I wanted tot see in the world: A half naked, messy haired, sweaty looking, droopier eyed looking Xander Harris stumbling back down the hall from the bathroom to Buffy's room.

"What are you doing?" he asked on the defensive. He thought I was spying on the likes of him…them. He was trying to protect 'er. Protect Buffy the Vampire Slayer from me, when it had been 'er who had beaten me countless times over and always would.

I couldn't answer 'im right away. My mind had clenched and stopped, leaving me speechless. I turned and made move back down the stairs to the basement.

"Xan…"

I thought it was the replay of the breathy call I had heard earlier _ that I wanted to 'ear it again so bad that my mind would echo it forever until I got my wish. But it wasn't. It was real.

I turned to see Buffy peek out of her room, still flushed and mussed in the afterglow – I had seen that look on 'er before. She still looked beautiful when I wasn't the cause. She was checking on 'er boy – seeing what was keeping him from 'er, not bothering to put on more than his button down shirt that he had worn earlier in the night.  She didn't have on anything else that I could see…and I could see.

"What are you doing Spike?"

They both saw me seeing and she adjusted 'er shirt to shield 'erself. Never used to do that. I remember mumbling "Nothing." But my feet still didn't carry me away from them. She reached for 'im then, pulled 'im back through the doorway with an almost naughty grin. 

"Go back to the basement. If the girls see you up here they'll freak."

I did.

Buffy told me to go and I did what she said – Like always.

That's how I found out that their friendship turned relationship had evolved into sex. I had literally been slapped in the face with it. And I know that she loves 'im because it sounds nothing like we did – sounds nothing like _us_.

Buffy's insatiable, I know that first hand, but they…Buffy is slow and methodical with 'im, nothing urgent and hurried - she has all the time in the world with the mortal, no less. When you love, you want it to last forever. Buffy wants 'er and Xander to last forever, and I had to get away.

"I'm gonna start charging you." Buffy's voice is behind me and I turn with a raised eyebrow and instinctive smirk as I lean back against the fridge I had just slammed shut. She caught the slip and added, "For the food."

I nod and shrug while she blushes. She slips her words a lot. Part of 'er mind still wants it – me. I take a sip of the…Capri Sun…I had grabbed. She had come in and I made for the first thing that I saw. I wasn't thirsty anyway. I hadn't said anything and 'er worry crept in. I saw it in 'er eyes and had it confirmed in 'er tone.

"Are you alright Spike?"

"Sure," I shrug.

She had taken the common courtesy to peel 'erself off of Xander long enough to check on me. There was no other reason for 'er to be in the kitchen. I wondered if 'er "real boyfriend" knew how much she cared about me – about a monster that she insisted live with 'er. Knowing that I love 'er, have had 'er, and reside mere yards away. I wonder if Xander thinks that I can have 'er again.

"Never been better." But just as I had seen the concern, I saw that she was gone by the time I finished the sentence.

"Kay. I'm going to bed."

The LED display, glowing bright green, shone from the counter to our left. 10:36. Early. But she had already left the room. 

Two pairs of footsteps clambering clumsily up the hard wood stairs intermingled with the sound of 'er laughter and his chuckles. A thump against the wall that ended with a smacking whimpers that I wasn't supposed to 'ear signaled a kiss, more than likely a grope, too, before more steps and a door clicking shut. 

I sagged back against the fridge again, reveling in the stomach clenching change in the world. In my world. "Never been better."

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 The End


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